The art collection of distinguished
French literature scholar Artine Artinian includes several hundred original
drawings, prints and paintings related to his field of study. The collection also
contains a large group of periodical issues, twenty-four reproductive prints,
and
two posters.

Call Number:

Art Collection AR-00009

Language:

English and
French.

Access:

Open for research. A minimum of twenty-four hours is required to pull art materials
to the Reading Room.

Artine Artinian was a distinguished scholar of French literature, as well as an
astute manuscript collector. He was infected with the collecting "virus," as he put it, when as a young high school
student, he bought twenty books from a friend who was moving out of town, among
which were three volumes by Guy de Maupassant. Little did he know that from then
on
all his allowance would be destined to the purchase of Maupassant's works, first
in
English, then in French. As both his taste and his pocketbook matured, he followed
the usual slippery slope of the collector, by buying first editions, progressing
to
numbered editions, and finally to accumulating Maupassant manuscripts and
correspondence, as well as the literary output of other French writers from the
Belle Époque, such as Proust, Flaubert, and
Verlaine.

Of Armenian descent, Artine Artinian was born on December 8, 1907, in Pazardjik,
Bulgaria. As an adolescent, he worked as a shoe-shiner in Attleboro, Massachusetts,
after his family emigrated there in 1920. He was able to attend Bowdoin College
(1931) with support from his loyal shoe-shining customers, and in later years,
he
returned the favor by establishing a scholarship fund for needy students there.
He
received a diploma from the Université de Paris in 1932, an A.M. from Harvard
the following year, and a Ph.D. from Columbia in 1941. His dissertation, Maupassant Criticism in France, 1880-1940, with an Inquiry into
His Present Fame and a Bibliography, was published the same year. He
also edited The Complete Short Stories of Guy de
Maupassant (1955), which expurgated sixty-five inauthentic works from
the Maupassant canon, and remains authoritative, even after half a century. In
1964,
Artinian retired from his post as Chairman of the Division of Languages and
Literature at Bard College, where he had been teaching since 1935. His collecting
did not stop with retirement, however, as he continued to amass manuscripts and
artwork, especially portraits, including artist self-portraits.

Professor Artinian believed that teaching was an art, and used his manuscript
collection to motivate his students. In an article that he wrote for the Modern Language Journal in 1952, he encouraged teachers
to enliven their lectures with the use of original documents in the classroom,
and
gave advice on how to accumulate them judiciously—even on a teacher's salary.
"My own collection has developed to its present size and
scope over a period of many years. The story of its growth is full of memorable
adventures, my life has been considerably enriched by associations with other
collectors in this country and abroad, and contacts with autograph and book
dealers have frequently developed into highly pleasant personal
relations."

Artinian's legacy was not solely of the scholarly sort, however. Mary McCarthy used
him as a template for her character Aristide Poncy in The
Groves of the Academe (1952), after she was hired to teach at Bard in
1945. McCarthy portrayed Poncy as genial and innocent, if a trifle absent-minded,
often returning from trips to France minus a student, and with "a taste in dress that suggested Sherlock Holmes."
Additionally, Gore Vidal used his name for the minor role of a psychiatrist in
his
play The Best Man (1960). In 1992, Artinian helped
David Lehman flesh out the deconstructionist Paul de Man's chaotic years at Bard
for
the paperback edition of his book Signs of the Times:
Deconstruction and the Fall of Paul de Man.

Artine Artinian died on November 19, 2005. His wife Margaret Woodbridge Artinian,
whom he met while at Columbia, preceded him in death earlier the same year. They
are
survived by two daughters and their son Robert, with whom Professor Artinian updated
his earlier work in Maupassant Criticism: A Centennial
Bibliography, 1880-1979 (1982).

Fox, Margalit. "Artine Artinian, 97, Dies: French
Literature Scholar." The New York
Times 11 December 2005.

Lehman, David. "Paul de Man: The Plot Thickens."
The New York Times 24 May 1992.

McCarthy, Mary. The Groves of the Academe. New York:
Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1952.

Vidal, Gore. The Best Man: A Play about Politics.
Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1960.

Additional biographical material on Artine Artinian is located in newspaper clippings
in the Art Collection's vertical file.

The Artine Artinian Art Collection is primarily a portrait collection. The original
works comprise 535 drawings, ninety-seven prints (fifty etchings, thirty
lithographs, five engravings, four wood engravings, four woodcuts, two screen
prints, and two photogravures), and thirty-one paintings (nineteen oils, seven
watercolors, and five gouaches). The collection also contains a large group of
periodical issues, twenty-four reproductive prints, and two posters.

Series I., Portraits, is divided into two subseries: A. Literary Portraits, and B.
Other Portraits. Subseries A., Literary Portraits, is a group of 443 portraits
of
235 different subjects by 194 named artists, seven artists identified by initials,
and several unidentified artists. These are portraits of figures of the French
literary scene of the nineteenth century through the first half of the twentieth
century. Included are about twenty-five self portraits, and a few portraits by
literary figures in the role of artists: Marcel Béalu, Jean Cocteau, Paul
Verlaine. The bulk of the Literary Portraits are arranged alphabetically by portrait
subject, followed by five large group portraits arranged alphabetically by artist.
Subseries B., Other Portraits, consists of two groups of works by Marthe Antoine
Gérardin: thirty portraits of delegates and officials of the 1929-1930 Hague
Conference, and thirty portraits of theater personalities of 1920s France. Each
drawing is signed by the subject. These are followed by a collection of 141
portraits by Robert Kastor. Kastor's portraits are of figures prominent in the
sciences and humanities in Europe and the United States at the end of the nineteenth
century and the beginning of the twentieth century. These include philosophers,
historians, economists, judges, linguists, classicists, social reformers,
scientists, and authors. Each portrait drawing is inscribed by the subject.

Series II., Miscellaneous Works, is divided into two subseries: A. Works related to
Guy de Maupassant (nineteen works), and B. Other Miscellaneous Works (thirty-one
works). Subseries A., Works Related to Guy de Maupassant, consists of three works
by
Guy de Maupassant, two paintings by Maupassant's father, Gustave de Maupassant,
landscapes of Maupassant's childhood home of Etretat on the English Channel, and
other works. Subseries B., Other Miscellaneous Works, includes illustrations by
Pierre-Georges Jeanniot, Lucien-Marie-François Métivet, Sahib, and Jehan
Testevuide, and other works.

An index of artists represented in Series I. and II. appears at the end of the
finding aid.

Series III. contains a complete run of the 469 numbers of Les
Hommes d'Aujourd'hui (Paris: Librarie Vanier, 1878-1899?), each of which
has a brief biographical text accompanied by a portrait or caricature. Over half
of
the portraits are by André Gill, Henri Demare, Manuel Luque, Émile Cohl,
or Coll-Toc; the other sixty-eight contributing artists include Camille Pissarro,
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Paul Signac.

An index of portrait subjects represented in all three series appears at the end of
the finding aid.

The Artine Artinian Art Collection includes three drawings by Zdzisław
Czermański which are described in the Art Collection's Zdzisław
Czermański Art Collection. The Ransom Center also has Artine Artinian
Collection materials in its Manuscripts Collection, its Library, its Photography
Collection, and its Vertical Files.